The family settled in an old townhouse in Prague. The joy of the house is enormous

The family settled in an old townhouse in Prague. The joy of the house is enormous

Life took us to the Netherlands, where we stayed for eight years instead of the planned one-year stay. We had two sons, and with the passage of time and approaching school, we considered whether we really wanted to stay permanently. We came to the conclusion that we do not want the children to know their grandparents only through video calls, so we began to intensively research the possibilities of living in the Czech Republic.

Brick houses, new buildings, renovations, we watched everything without specific preferences and waited for something to really appeal to us. And it happened. The terraced house, built in the post-World War II era, required renovation, but it immediately won our hearts.

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In the Netherlands, we changed several types of housing over the years, and it was funny that this particular house in the Czech Republic almost identically copied an extended one the Dutch typology of buildings – a narrow two-story row house with an attic.

Since we never wanted acres of land and a big garden, this type of house with a front yard and a small garden suited us. You can enter from the living room directly outside, but at the same time you are not under the pressure of maintaining large areas of greenery.

The fact that we already knew a similar provision from the Netherlands was a great benefit for us. We knew how we functioned in such a space and how to deal with it as best as possible.

It is true that the solution of the new space was a bit more demanding, because the width of the building was one meter smaller – 4.2 meters. So in the original Dutch house, we measured the dimensions and thought about where and how we could have things. It was literally a matter of every centimeter.

However, we devised the layout itself with the architects. We knew that as laymen in the construction industry, we needed a guide. We wanted someone to help us with the conceptual design and negotiations with the authorities.

The family settled in an old townhouse in Prague . The joy of the house is huge

In our case, the approval involved contacting eight concerned authorities. Even the architects themselves said in retrospect that in the future they would think carefully about whether they would offer clients the service of processing documentation at the authorities, because it was really challenging.

Working with architects certainly helped us organize our thoughts and ideas about living. They have more experience, know different tricks and know which places to look out for. We also ordered a rough design of the interior from them, which helped us. We wanted the exterior and interior design of the house to be in harmony. We discussed a lot with each other and constantly changed points of view.

Statics requires a wooden structure

For the reconstruction, we had a classic wet masonry or concrete construction option in reserve, but the structural engineer recommended a lighter type of construction due to the load. There is nothing to complain about the wooden construction, the only weakness is the acoustics associated with the beamed ceilings, through which the sounds from the upper floor are simply transmitted.

We selected one main contractor for the implementation of the construction. It was based on one-stage documentation from the architects and a detailed itemized budget.

However, he proposed different solutions in a number of details during implementation, and we changed our decisions regarding many elements. For example, because we decided on a higher standard. The budget swelled a lot due to these two factors.

In hindsight, we see that approximately twenty percent of the total funds for construction should be kept as a reserve. In our experience, every large project continuously generates certain changes and cost increases occur almost without exception.

Communicate your wishes as soon as possible

There are so many details on the entire construction that it is not even possible to think through them all thoroughly. And when you think about them as you go, it's sometimes overwhelming. If we were to advise builders based on our experience, it would certainly be to try to name as many wishes and needs as possible with the architects at the beginning.

They can then advise you and integrate the solution into the project. We didn't remember everything at first, and practical little things like insect nets, which would really come in handy here, can't be attached to our type of windows.

Overall, however, the joy of the house is enormous. And that there are things that we would solve differently today? Yes, but that's normal when implementing such a scale. When experience shows all the connections. However, these little things do not spoil the overall feeling.

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You can find other interesting wooden buildings in the current issue of the magazine WOOD&stavby. Photo: Václav Kahoun

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